TITLE: Birds of a Feather Flock Together
TEAM FIC
SPOILERS FOR UP TO MALTESE FALCON

Chapter Two: Wounded Herring

"What!?! That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard!" Sophie screamed, "You are not doing that! You'll kill yourself, and I am not losing two people I love in one day!"

"Calm down, Sophie." Tara tried. "I know what I'm doing. And all you need to do is get Nate out while I have the cops distracted."

"I gotta tell ya, I'm with Sophie on this." Eliot yelled from the kitchen where his hair was being colored. "Your plan is sounding pretty bad."

"I'm fine!" She finally yelled, getting tired of the skepticism. "As soon as it gets dark I'll need one of you to drop me at the ER. Then you can get to it. And I'm trusting you to do your jobs."

Hardison looked up from his computer to make sure he wasn't imagining how pissed Tara was. He wasn't. "Take my car. Parker will drive you. You sure know what you're doing?"

"Yes, Hardison. Thank you." She sighed. She looked out the window, "We haven't got much time. Parker, go get the plates off the car."

Sophie was pacing back and forth in front of the TV wall. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Well decide now before I go through with anything." Tara replied without allowing Sophie any sympathy.

Sophie looked up at her friend, eyes hard. "You know that I don't support this."

"And you know I'll do it anyway."

Forty-five minutes later Parker was driving towards the hospital, Tara in the backseat. The plans were set. The disguises in place. Everything was ready. All that was left was for Sterling to be distracted. That meant Tara had too— Tara let out a sharp breath as she pushed the closed blades of the scissors into her gut.

"Shit!" Parker swerved a little and glanced back at the now wounded Tara. "Are you..?"

"Drive." Tara commanded through gritted teeth. She had tried not to hit anything too important but, it's a stabbing. You got to make it believable. It still hurt even if she wasn't dying. "Tell me…When." Her breath was shallow from the pain as she felt herself succumb to the white heat. She was starting to wish she'd given herself another concussion. "Speed. Parker."

"Okay, okay." Parker floored it as she entered the ER unloading zone. "Three…Two…Go!" She stopped the car for half a second to let Tara out.

Tara pushed the door open, pulled the scissors out of her flesh and rolled on to the pavement. The ground was wet and cold, it was dark but the glow of the intake light illuminated her body as she flipped herself to the floor. Two EMTs spotted her as she hit ground. She could feel the blood starting to pump from the wound. The nurses were asking her questions and saying things, and she would have held on longer, answered questions, but she had left her ID at home for a reason. She was no one. All she had to identify her was Sterling's card. And she'd have told someone that if she hadn't been getting so cold. In fact, all she could feel was herself getting cold. And then…Dark.

"I'm above his room. Are you ready to start getting feeds?" Parker asked via com. The others knew better than to speculate the status of their fallen brethren, instead they were executing the rest of the plan.

"Yeah, go." Hardison clicked on a few as Parker planted the first camera.

"He looks okay." Sophie whispered when Nate's image appeared. "Okay, find Tara and get the hallways…"

"You do your thing girl." Hardison encouraged.

Parker smirked at Hardison's coolness at the situation and crawled along through the vent.

Meanwhile, Eliot was inside the hospital, putting a drive on the hospital security system so Hardison could pick-up the signal and use their footage as well. Eliot had strict instructions not to look for Sterling or Nate. And he didn't want to make Sophie mad by trying to, it wasn't safe and he didn't need to get caught by looking for trouble.

He was, however, allowed to look for Tara. He wasn't the one to find her. Parker did find her. And when she saw the normally strong, confidant woman laying in a hospital bed with tubes to her arms… Parker almost forgot that Tara was a decoy, and she was going to be okay, and not to worry. Accept the scared sound Parker made had nothing to do with state of her friend and everything to do with who had found Tara first. Who was sitting calmly in the guest chair of Tara's room. "Sterling."

"That's good, Parker." Sophie reminded. "She's our distraction. She's supposed to keep Sterling busy."

"But Nate's got three feds guarding his room, even if we do keep Sterling outta the way—" Hardison pointed out the latest hurdle.

Eliot piped up this time. "I can take those guys."

"Fine. But you'll be quiet about it." Sophie was stern, even in that allowance. "Parker, come home."

"But Tara's still…" Parker protested.

"Tara will be fine." Sophie assured. "Just get out. We can't do anything until Tara starts her run. And that's assuming she does."

Hardison looked up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"She may not remember what she's supposed to do." Eliot answered for the interim leader.

Parker was the one to voice their fears this time. "Then what?"

Tara's eyes popped open the second she was awake She kept them open, too, despite the harsh fluorescent light that met her. Everything hurt, and yet, she could feel nothing. It was odd. She started to sit up but felt the pain shoot through her gut and fell back to the bed. Her hand went to stomach and she felt dressing like the time she'd been shot. But she didn't recall anyth—

"Well, well, well," Tara heard the familiar, and evil, voice of Jim Sterling. And she remembered everything. The con, the plan, Nate, Sterling, the stabbing….

"It was them!" Tara gasped, her breath stronger than she thought it would be. She managed to sit up, against the pain, and make eye contact with Sterling, the enemy. "They stabbed me."

Sterling smiled lightly. "Oh, now? Whatever happened to 'thick as thieves'?"

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